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Jean A. Costa / Posts tagged "new york"
January 19, 2014 In Faith

Praying the Rosary

Affirmation: I am committed to cultivating compassion for
those who most need God’s mercy. 
Many years ago when my husband Sandy and I were in New York City
we went to Ellis Island.  It had recently
opened and I was very anxious to see it. 
I knew that both our ancestors had entered the United States through
that terminal and even if they hadn’t I felt it was an amazing opportunity to
experience at least a trace of the United States’ history in a very real way.  It was late in the day when we headed off for
the tour.  It was a rainy dark day.  We stood on the line to embark on the ship
and finally boarded and headed towards the island.  It was remarkable!  I was stunned by the size of the entry hall
and took time to imagine what it would have been like to come into it, wondering
if I would be allowed to enter the country or if I would be turned away.  I could only imagine the exhaustion and
anxiety that would accompany such an experience.  
We didn’t have as much time as I would have
liked because we’d started out so late but I was pleased that we had made the
effort.  The last ferry was about to leave.  It was still raining and now it was totally
dark.  We again waited on line to board
the ship.  When we finally got aboard,
there weren’t any seats but there was a little shelter towards the bow.  My husband and I were quiet with our
thoughts.  I decided to say the Rosary as
we headed back to port.  When you
disembark the ship at Battery Park there is not a que for the taxis.  One must search for transportation and if
you’re trying to get back uptown it can be a very daunting exercise.  There weren’t any taxis to be found
anywhere.  There were all these people
vying for a ride and it was crazy!  We
decided to head off in the opposite direction of the crowd, to take the
“path less traveled.”  As we
walked along we were quiet and I threw in a few more Hail Mary’s.  Roaming around that area in the dark was not the
best choice, even for two street wise people from NYC.   
We were becoming concerned when we turned a
corner and two people were exiting a taxi. 
We immediately got into it and took a few deep breaths.  I don’t remember the cabbie’s name and why,
you ask, would I?  Well, the first thing
we noticed is that he had on a classic music station; it was playing Pachelbel’s
Cannon. I could feel the tension drain away, not only from me but from my
husband and then we both noticed the Rosary hanging from the cabbie’s rear view
mirror.  I smiled.  I might have even giggled a bit.  My husband turned in the seat and looked
directly at me and said, “You’ve been praying the Rosary, haven’t
you?” 
Now, this was quite a while back. 
I say this because now if you hail a cab in NY, the driver probably
doesn’t speak English and they won’t have music on, they have TV screens with
advertisements that demand your attention but even then, many years ago, most of
the cabbies were from another country. 
The probability of getting an English speaking driver was very low.  The probability of getting an English
speaking, Rosary practicing Catholic cabby was miraculous. 
I have a young friend who is not a Catholic.  She was raised a Christian but her life has
taken her in another direction at this point. 
She recently shared with me that she was reading a book about Mother
Mary, the goddess.  It’s not the first
time someone has told me they thought of the Blessed Mother as a goddess.  I once went for an interview for a graduate
program and when I told the interviewer that I was a Catholic, she exclaimed,
“Oh, that’s so cool!  Your faith has
a goddess, Mother Mary.”  At that
time I was surprised.  So, I wasn’t
surprised this time.  What surprised me
is that my friend shared that she had begun to pray to Mary.  She shared that she’d had an issue with a
loved one who was not well and she didn’t want to add to her relatives’
distress.  Instead she wrote a letter to
Mary, burned it and asked for peace.  She
was sharing with me that peace came, almost immediately and it had remained
with her up to this point. 
Catholics are sometimes criticized for praying to others besides
Christ.  It’s true we do, or I should
say, I do.  It’s not that we’re really
praying to another.  We’re really asking
that spiritual being who we believe is closer to God at that moment than we
are, to intercede for us.  I pray to St.
Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, more and more often. It never
fails!  “Saint Anthony, Saint
Anthony please look around.  I’ve lost my
_______ and it needs to be found.” 
I recite a lot of memorized prayers and several I’ve made up.  I also pray the Rosary.  It was once explained to me that Mother Mary
can intercede for us by asking for what we really need, many times when we
don’t even have a clue about what we really need. 
It is part of the practice to meditate on one of the Mysteries of
the Rosary before beginning the prayers for each of the five decades of ten
beads.  There are four Mysteries each one
assigned to a different day or days of the week.  They take you from the conception of Christ
to the Assumption of Mary.  I’ve been
saying the Rosary since I was a child and love to pray it especially as I walk
around our nearby lake.  I find comfort
in the recitation.  With the reading of
Father Haas’ book, Catching Fire, Becoming Flame, I decided to make an
effort to recite the Rosary daily.  He
calls us to be of service.  He reminds us
that being of service is the purpose of our existence and we are especially
called to be of service to those most in need. 
I believe that to be true and while I am a volunteer in many ministries,
I wanted to do even more for the marginalized of society.  I wanted to find a way to bring comfort and
peace and hope to those most in need.  I
therefore, have committed to saying the Rosary, daily, for those God deems most
in need of help.  I believe in answered
prayer.  I achingly hope that my
thoughts, intentions and the energy I am sending forth into the universe are
tenderly touching the lives of those who are suffering.  I feel it’s a step, perhaps the first step
for me, towards feeling a greater sense of compassion for those who most need
God’s mercy.
If Mother Mary can bring peace to a non-believer and a NY taxi to
a couple of nervous, wet, cold travelers, I am very hopeful about what she can
do for the comfort of those who so desperately are in need of comfort.  Join me. 
Pray your set of prayers for those who are suffering.  Imagine our energy bringing solace, hope,
maybe even joy to those who are suffering more than we can even imagine. Every
thought we think, every word we say, every action we take affects everyone else
in the world. May our thoughts and energy bring peace, salvation and perhaps
even joy to those who suffer more than we can even imagine. 
June 4, 2013 In Uncategorized

Peace Be With You

Affirmation:  I live a Christ centered life of love,
peace, joy, gratitude and compassion.
Once upon a time
an amateur golfer could purchase hole-in-one insurance.  If the golfer made a hole-in-one, he or she
would receive an all-expense paid trip to anywhere in the world.  I knew this because one of my husband’s
business associates at that time had just returned from a trip to Hawaii that
he had “won” through this program.  My
husband had a birthday coming up and I thought this would be an excellent
present for him (for us!)  I probably had
a slight attack of conscience because I mentioned it to him to make sure this
was something he’d really enjoy.  He
would not, he told me.  What he really
wanted was a new set of golf head-covers. 
That’s what I bought him.  He was
happy.  The following week my husband had
his first hole-in-one.  It did not make
him happy.  He certainly didn’t want to
call me to tell me about it.  I think if
he could have kept it from me for the rest of his life, he would have but we
lived in the tiny town of Norwich, New York and word would reach me probably
sooner than later.  As you can imagine I
was very disappointed.  I can think of
several things I might have done differently had I known he was to have this
hole-in-one after telling me not to buy him the $40.00 hole-in-one
insurance.  But, it’s always easier in
retrospect, isn’t it?  We’re always so
much wiser in retrospect, aren’t we? 
What would life be like if we were people who knew ahead of time what
was going to happen?  
I love those
sci-fi movies about people who are time travelers.  I especially like the ones where people go
back to the past.  Two of my favorites
are Back to the Future with Michael
J. Fox and Peggy Sue with Kathleen
Turner.  In both films they were able to
impart helpful knowledge to people in their past to help them improve their
lives in the future.  In Peggy Sue,
Kathleen Turner had a nerdy friend who believed her story that she was from the
future.  He wanted to know what he should
invest in.  “Panty hose,” she
suggested.  What should I invest in now
that will insure my future success?  Do I
need to be able to see the future to make those decisions?  Maybe I would be able to pick out the winning
power ball number or I could buy some sort of unknown stock, like Apple, before
it went through the ceiling.  Perhaps one
would know who not to marry or what job not to pass up.  Oh, the places one could go and the things
one could do without any concern, without any confusion. 
I have several
dear friends whose early married lives were very difficult.  One friend’s husband left her with three
children and declared bankruptcy.  Right
after he left, her house burned to the ground. 
These were only a few of the challenges she faced at that time. Her husband
then began a new relationship and a new business and she was left to figure out
how to survive.  The really good news is
she did more than survive, she thrived! 
It’s been a few decades now since all this began but recently she found
out he was dying.  She held a lot of
justified resentment towards him but she picked up the phone to talk to him and
instead of venting all her frustration and anger, she found herself thanking
him.  For what?  For her three wonderful children, for her
stamina and fortitude and for the life she now lives.  If she could have seen into the future with
all the travail she would face, she probably would have still chosen the same;
a different choice would have meant she would be a different person and she’s a
marvelous human being because of the trials she’s overcome.  She has made peace not only with her
ex-husband but with life.
In the Catholic
Mass we have one phrase that is used three times.  “Peace be with you.”  Three times the priest says, “Peace be with
you.”  No other phrase is repeated even
once but this one is repeated three times. 
Why?  Because it’s the one gift
everyone desires, peace.  When we are in
the middle of war most of the population wants it to end.  They want peace.  When we are in the throes of caring for someone
in pain, we pray for their peace.  When
someone has experienced the death of a loved one, we ask for them to have
peace.  When we or someone we know is
faced with any sort of difficulty, financial or physical, we want to see them
come to a peaceful place.  Peace.  What does it look like?  Can one find it in any situation?  Recently, an acquaintance confided that his
job might be at risk.  We reacted with
alarm.  He, on the other hand told us he
wasn’t worried.  There was nothing he
could do about it right now, so he wasn’t upset.  He was at peace.  We may not have a definitive definition for
peace but we all know when it’s missing. 
We all know when we are not at peace. 
It is one of God’s greatest gifts. 
We can claim it whenever we want.  Sometimes all it takes is a short prayer, a deep breath and a silent few moments.  Once we are at peace with ourselves, we can radiate that peace out into
the rest of the world. 
It might seem like
foreknowledge might be a better gift than peace but it doesn’t matter.  There is no such thing, no matter what the
psychic tells us.  There’s no guarantee
that we’ll ever know what the future will hold. 
But, we can find peace with whatever life has brought us.  We can let go of the disappointments, the
trials, the hurts, the not so wise choices and we can ask God to let us go
forward with the gift of peace.  We can
go forward knowing that our lives, the good, the bad and the ugly are exactly
as they are supposed to be and that with God’s gift of peace, we can rest in
all of it.  

P.S.  Because of Sandy’s career we have not only traveled to Hawaii, we have traveled the world.  We really didn’t need that hole-in-one insurance.  

September 15, 2012 In Uncategorized

Letting Go of Childhood Limitations

Affirmation:  I let
go of my childhood limitations.

How can one be over the age of 50, 60, 70 and still be restricted
or controlled by emotions and concepts that influenced them as they were
growing up?  How can one not?  I’m speaking about those emotions and
concepts that deter us from true joy, that interfere with our ability to
completely savor and embrace life.  And, is it even possible to release
oneself, to become an adult in one’s own right?  Is it possible to grasp
the positive qualities that serve us and our loved ones and let go of those,
perhaps at least acknowledge and appreciate the experience but then let go of
those concepts that are damaging us?

Part of the creative process encouraged in Julia Cameron’s The
Artist’s Way, is an examination of what one felt was lacking in their
childhood.  I was a lucky person.  Looking back on my childhood I remember a lot
of freedom and amazingly, even with all that freedom, I never experienced any
trauma.  My mother and my father worked
very hard and while my grandparents lived below our one bedroom apartment for
the first ten years of my life, that was about the extent of our family.  My father was an only child and my mom’s
siblings were more than a decade older than her and did not live close.  I grew up in Jamaica, Queens.  When the city was preparing for the 1964
World’s Fair, they took down all the trees along my street, Grand Central
Parkway, and I could actually see the Empire State Building from my house. 

It was not an inner city neighborhood but it was close.  Most of the houses were attached brick homes
with the driveway in the back alley.  We
had about ten square feet of lawn in the front and my dad paved over the back
yard so we had room to park our cars.  My
mom had a clothes line that went from the second story kitchen window to a pole
out back and she hung most of our laundry out to dry.  I would head out to play early in the day and
wouldn’t return until the street lights went on.  We played hard.  We skated, rode bikes, climbed walls and
trees.  We played tag, jumped rope and
played stick ball.  In the winter we ice
skated several miles from the house and rode our sleds down the back alley
driveways.  No one ever seemed to come
look for us and if you can imagine, we didn’t have cell phones!  We were free. 
We had a lot of choices.  I grew
up believing I could do anything.  I
wasn’t sure what that was or where it would lead me, but there were no
boundaries for me as a child.  I assumed
there wouldn’t be any for me as an adult. 
Oh, I was well aware of the fact that I was a girl but when it came to
running, climbing and skating, I was equal to any boy.  It wasn’t until college that I discovered
women were expected to only follow certain paths. 

After Julia has you examine what you thought you lacked as a
child, she then encourages you to find ways to parent yourself, to nurture
yourself.  You can’t begin to let go and
to heal until you recognize what it is you were missing.  Maybe you never felt loved enough.  Maybe you never felt valued enough.  My parents were so busy that I never felt I
received enough affection.  Of course, so
much of our childhood memories can be so skewed.  I once heard the story of a young woman who
recalled a fainting episode to her mother. 
She was shocked to learn she hadn’t fainted at all, it had been her
sister!  But, whether or not our feelings
are based on reality or perception, doesn’t matter.  They are our feelings.  I can still recall childhood incidents that
make me feel sad or happy or frightened and my childhood ended more than half a
century ago.  And now life moves
onward.  There are times when you need to
let go of any junk you feel about your childhood.  At some point if you hope to be healthy and
happy you simply need to “get over it.” 

I am my mother’s main caregiver.  I am very blessed because
at 90 she is still extremely healthy and independent.  I’m the oldest of
three and mom chose to move near me over 15 years ago.  She made the move
all by herself.  She likes to be independent and self- sufficient. 
It empowers her as it probably does most of us.  My prayer for Mom is that
she will continue to have joy and maintain dignity as she finishes out her
life.  I only want to love her and enjoy her presence. I want to be the
“good little girl” and make her happy.  I want to take whatever
steps needed to help her feel better, to make her happy.  I’m 66 years old
and the child in me still wants to please my mother but I know, this is a fact,
that no matter what or how much I do, I cannot please her long term.  I
cannot make her happy.  Sister Mary Margaret from A Place for Women to
Gather says, “Happiness is an inside job.”  There is only one person who
can make us happy, us. 

That’s why I create affirmations.  It’s all up to me what I
think, how I perceive life, how I feel.  I cannot remain the good little
girl and live frustrated and sad because of anyone. I must let go of ALL
my childhood limitations and embrace my own adult determination to create my
own happiness.  Have you looked at your childhood limitations?  Are
they interfering with the quality of your life?  Can you too release
them?  Do you want to?

A reporter went to interview a man who was very down on his
luck.  He had lost everything dear to him
and had fallen into a chronic alcoholic state. 
“Why do you think your life has turned out this way?” he asked.  The man shared with him that his father was
an alcoholic and he never held out much hope for himself.  Then the reporter went to interview the man’s
brother.  He was surprised to find him
leading a very happy, successful life. 
He decided to ask him the same question, “Why do you think your life has
turned out this way?”  The brother said,
“Well, for heaven’s sake, my father was a chronic alcoholic.  I watched him all through my childhood and
decided my life was never going to follow that path.” 

Life is all about our choices. 
We get to choose what lessons we want to learn from our childhood.  We get to decide if we’re going to carry the
sad, remorseful feelings with us into adulthood and let them weigh us down or
if we are going to learn the lesson, release ourselves from the limitations and
grow up healthy and happy. 
April 25, 2012 In Uncategorized

Outward Bounds

Affirmation: I embrace stepping outside of my comfort zone.  
I’m a
huge fan of the TV show Dancing with the Stars. I’ve been a fan since the very
beginning. I jokingly say it’s because there’s no sex, violence or foul
language. I can watch it with my grandchildren or my mother. How many shows are
out there that meet those qualifications? I also love to dance.

On the show, about a dozen celebrities learn to dance different ballroom dances with a professional dancer. They get to wear these sparkly, colorful, fun costumes and learn a new dance or two each week until the final week when one of the couples is declared the champion for that season and they get the famed Mirrorball Trophy. It’s such fun to see the people progress. I find it very inspirational. Sometimes there are celebrities who have serious disabilities but they don’t let that stop them. In 2011 TJ Martinez won the title. He was a wounded Iraq war veteran with serious burns to his whole body, including his face. He actually lost an ear in the explosion. Did that keep him from giving it his all? When I watched him dance and saw the joy that emanated from his whole being, I completely forgot about his disfigurement. I obviously wasn’t the only one because he was that year’s champion.  
On
the show, about a dozen celebrities learn to dance different ballroom dances
with a professional dancer. They get to wear these sparkly, colorful, fun
costumes and learn a new dance or two each week until the final week when one
of the couples is declared the champion for that season and they get the famed
Mirrorball Trophy. It’s such fun to see the people progress. I find it very
inspirational. Sometimes there are celebrities who have serious disabilities
but they don’t let that stop them. In 2011 TJ Martinez won the title. He was a
wounded Iraq war veteran with serious burns to his whole body, including his
face. He actually lost an ear in the explosion. Did that keep him from giving
it his all? When I watched him dance and saw the joy that emanated from his
whole being, I completely forgot about his disfigurement. I obviously wasn’t
the only one because he was that year’s champion.

Sherri
Shephard, from the TV program The View was one of the contestants this year,
2012. She was determined to do well. She wasn’t a little lady and I could only
imagine how mentally and physically challenging it was for her to learn those
dances. She really wanted to win. She was traveling between the show she
regularly hosts in NY City and the Dancing show in Los Angeles. It must have
been a grueling schedule. I know she had all the advantages that money can
provide but it doesn’t lessen the hard work she had to put forth. She was
eliminated in week four. She cried and cried. But, before they could say
goodbye, she had something she wanted to share with the viewers. “If you don’t go towards the thing you fear, you won’t be
able to say you lived.” She went on to say that you should run towards that
thing you fear because what you’ll find on the other side, is simply amazing.
I mentioned to several of my friends that I was somewhat afraid
of my upcoming trip to South America. One of them said, “Oh, Jean, that’s
great! Because when you come home, you’ll feel so good about what you’ve done.”
I know she’s right. Her comment gave me a sense of optimism and excitement,
instead of dread and anxiety.

My husband and I did an Outward Bound in 2000. We spent 5 days
canoeing through the Everglades. Now, I want to share that I am a city girl. I
was raised in Queens, New York. Our home was on Grand Central Parkway. I mean,
right on it. I was riding the buses and the trains by myself by the time I was
10. The “country” was the property fenced in around the hospitals that bordered
our three block neighborhood. And now, I’ve been invited by my husband (born in
Brooklyn) to go on an Outward Bound. He was on the Outward Bound board and
thought this was a good idea. I got a tape about the Everglades. There were
snakes and alligators, not to mention other creepy crawly things. But this was
the year after I finished treatment for breast cancer and I figured if I could
go through that, I could probably canoe through the swamps. I invited a friend
to go with us and she was shocked, “What is the purpose of this excursion?”
Well, if you needed to ask that, I figured you really didn’t need to come
along.

So, we went. We brought along our son who was in his twenties
and our teenage daughter. The good news when we arrived was that we weren’t
going to be in the swamp, we were canoeing through the Thousand Islands. Whew!!
On our first night we had to create an island. We took boards from the bottom
of the canoes and lashed them together on top of the canoes. This was our
“home” for the night. My first night to ever sleep outside, outside under a sky
that had more stars than I had ever seen before. I learned a lot during those
days. I learned that my daughter was an amazing person. She never complained.
She just did whatever was needed, my son too. My husband was as kind and
gracious in the wild as he is in civilization and I learned that I could be an
indian or a chief. I could both follow and lead, whatever was required. And, I
learned that I could survive in a situation I never even imagined. Now, when
Sandy and I find ourselves doing something that’s challenging, outside of our
comfort zones, we refer to it as an “outward bound experience.” It’s funny how
often we find ourselves in that kind of a position. The purpose of going
outside of your comfort zone it to empower you, that’s the purpose. Life is
challenging, there’s no two ways about it. The only way to bolster your
confidence is to do those things that frighted you, “to run towards them” as
Sherri said. You not only receive the gift of empowerment, many times you find
joy and fulfillment from making your way to a whole new place.

Fear is a debilitating disease. I believe we make more decisions
based on fear than any other reason. It needs to be recognized and overcome.
There’s a wonderful tale about a guru who treks all over the land, sharing his
wisdom and compassion. One day, he decides to return home. When he walks into
his house, he is met by several huge ferocious monsters. They are drooling and
their fangs are bared. He looks at them and asks, “Why are you here? What is it
that you need?” and half of them disappear. He then asks the others, “Why are
you here? Is there something I can do for you?” and they disappear, all except
one. He is the biggest and the most frightening of all of them. He is growling
and hissing and drooling but the guru is calm. He goes up to the monster and he
puts his head into his mouth and with that, the monster evaporates.

This is the challenge; to face our fears with love and
compassion, to put our heads into the monsters of life. Sometimes we get to
choose our outward bounds and sometimes they are thrust upon us but if we have
faced those events that take us out of ourselves and we’ve survived, we will be
as prepared as possible for those events that we never even imagined.